


Kiss Your Knuckles

by philistine



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: First Kiss, Last Kiss, M/M, The Dream Thieves Spoilers, Tremendous Amount Of Fire Metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-21
Updated: 2016-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-25 21:44:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7548301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philistine/pseuds/philistine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronan and Kavinsky used to be like smoke to each other, stealing breath and reality and dreams.</p><p>(Or: Their first and their last kiss.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kiss Your Knuckles

**Author's Note:**

> The title is inspired by Halsey's "Trouble - Stripped" and I borrowed three original lines of dialogue from Maggie Stiefvater's books.

The first time Ronan Lynch and Joseph Kavinsky ever kissed had been reality - harsh and impatient like the way Kavinsky pushed the other boy out of the backseat of his Mitsubishi, his hazardous smile all fangs and blood.

  
Ronan felt as if his throat had been cut, while he wasn't able to do anything but to be drawn into the dilated abyss he uncovered when his punch blew off Kavinsky's favourite pair of sunglasses.  
  


Hidden beneath them was the kind of _want_ that would have left his prey gasping for oxygen, even if he didn't violently clashed in between the asphalt below and another body on top.

  
The Bulgarian's gums were bleeding in the place Ronan's itching knuckles had kissed them and the grip on his wrists had Ronan trembling instead of attempting to break free  _because he knew he could and he knew Kavinsky knew._

  
An evidence in crimson - a drop in the color that should have been the only thing connecting them - trickled down on his skin when the now snickering boy lingered only a few inches above his face. The almost black strands of hair frantically tickling his shaved skull like some almost torture had Ronan almost-waiting and almost-fearing for the real torment to take him apart.

  
They shared a never-ending second of heavy breathing or maybe not breathing at all until the rubber band of their craving - twisted and twisted and twisted by way they lurked around the other like carnivores - finally snapped and pulled them against each other.

  
"I'll gut you.", Kavinsky whispered softly betraying the murderous _brilliance_ of his stare before he ran his tongue over the drip of blood on Ronan's chin and crushed their lips together as if his chosen rival had begged him for some mercy he would pleasantly deny.

  
The blend of saltpeter, charcoal and sulphur Ronan had so desperately hid behind the bars of his dreams and his silence went off at the first contact and he let out a long surpressed groan when Kavinskys teeth teared him into pieces.

  
Ronan shook off the shackles of rough hands sliding down his wrists in teasing because he couldn't bear the burning of the gentleness paradoxically brimming over the restless touches that were all exclamation marks against his own question marks.

  
But Joseph Kavinsky had never been a riddle to solve anyway - he was a safety notch to unlock triggering Ronan's senses in the right places.

  
Kissing K on the _battle_ grounds of their streets seemed so easy when everything else in Ronan's life wasn't.

  
Before he truly caught up, he was already stroking the brittle skin underneath the hems of K's tank top - right where K wanted them to be - and when Ronan sat up to shove the leaner body above him against the open car, he could feel the vibrations of Kavinsky's gleeful laughter inside his mouth.

* * *

  
The last time Ronan and Kavinsky ever kissed had been a dream, had somehow been and at the same time not been  _Cabeswater_.

  
The trees were crying in agony around them when Kavinsky drained their everything as much as only someone with nothing could bear, while his hollow eyes were looking at Ronan like they never saw anything else.

  
Thorns and cuts and _resolve_ were the only thing left connecting the two boys who used to share so much, but neither of them would or could take a step back after all that happened.

  
Instead, Kavinsky dragged his highly charged body towards Ronan, his snicker a blurry declaration of war as he met the fingers clawing at his collar in affected anticipation.

 _  
What's here, K? Nothing! No one!_ , Ronan shouted because this world's laments nearly swallowed his voice.

_  
Just us **.**_

  
When Kavinsky kissed Ronan, both of his hands leaving smudges of blood on both of the other boy's cheeks, Ronan didn't kiss him back.

  
This time, there were no hands or teeth or tongues working Ronan open like a hot knife. There were no eyes closed for him to read in the their touches, no sweet nothings of insults or curses, no _I know you_ \- only chapped lips pressed to his and dead eyes staring at him in a foreign language.

  
Pictures of Matthew smiling at him in an unearthly innocent way, of Gansey still vigorously talking about Glendower while choking on a mint leaf, of Noah, Blue and _Adam_ tenderly rolling their eyes flared through his mind.

  
At that Ronan's adamant shoulders went tense.

  
Kissing K on the grounds of their secret place stopped being easy all at once. For every time being with Kavinsky made Ronan come undone before, this last time, it only made Ronan realise for good:

_  
That's not enough._

  
Kavinsky didn't hold onto him when Ronan shoved him back and he didn't smile before he took his monster away with him.  
  


* * *

  
Years and years after the bonfire their first kiss ignited and their last kiss doused, Ronan would lay on the hood of his car to observe a cloudy night sky in solitude now and then.

  
There would be a bottle of cheap spirit he would only take a single sip from in his one hand, and an abandoned cigarette left to burn itself in the other - a sham of the taste on his tongue, when he and Kavinsky used to be like smoke to each other, stealing breath and reality and dreams.

  
And when Ronan finally learned that he didn't hate himself, he could also admit that he didn't hate Kavinsky either.

**Author's Note:**

> Please, bear with me if my thirst for bitter rovinsky doesn't take hostages & if there are obvious spelling or grammar mistakes.
> 
> Hook me up with writing prompts about Raven Cycle & All For The Game @[ tumblr ](http://kixxingmesoftly.tumblr.com/).


End file.
